Imagine someone training and competing for four years and qualifying for the Olympic Trials, only to have them abruptly canceled and the only people making the Olympics are the top seeds.

On a much smaller scale, that’s what happened Thursday for those hoping to compete in the Western Massachusetts high school swimming championships.

Saturday’s boys and girls meets at Springfield College weren’t merely postponed due to the approaching Winter Storm Nemo and the massive amounts of snow it is expected to drop.

The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association simply canceled all sectional meets statewide and declared that all swimmers who have posted qualifying standards for a state meet will compete next weekend.

That leaves out the vast majority of student-athletes who were scheduled to have the highlight of their high school careers Saturday.

"We had a few swimmers who only qualified for Western Mass. and were basically in tears at practice today when they found out," said Jamie Yurgielewicz, whose Northampton team was one of the favorites to win the girls championship.

The reasoning behind the MIAA's move is a clear "all or nothing" decision.

“We regret that facility and time constraints prohibit the re-scheduling of these events,” the MIAA posted Thursday on its Web site.

In other parts of the state, that is apparently the case. However, Western Mass. had Springfield College booked for Sunday just in case, according to Minnechaug Regional High School athletic director Mike Roy.

“I think it’s an absolute travesty that it’s not happening,” said Roy, whose school has won the last five Western Mass. boys championships and three of the last four on the girls side. “The look on these kids’ faces when I went to tell them was devastating.”

Roy said he and Chicopee Public Schools AD Jim Blain also proposed to the MIAA that Minnechaug and Chicopee Comprehensive would each host a gender on Monday in a meet open only to those who have not already qualified for states – simply to give them their moment.

The MIAA’s response was that they’d be applying to host an event that has already been canceled. Roy, Blain and others in the Western Mass. swimming community are not satisfied with that answer.

“To me, that’s not good enough. It’s not OK,” Roy said, adding that discussions would continue at Thursday’s sectional diving meet, which was not canceled. “We’re still trying to work on it.”

In other parts of the state, sectional meets don’t carry the same allure as the state championship. Teams train to peak on the third weekend in February, not the second. In these parts, however, it’s the other way around.

"There's a lot of kids who have been working really hard, and they only made Western Mass.," said Miranda Wingfield, another co-captain on Northampton. "Now they expect us to go to states and do just as well, but it's really not going to be like that."

The silver lining, if there is one, is that the MIAA could learn from this for the future, although it’s no consolation for this year’s swimmers.

“If this were any other sport, we wouldn’t be here right now,” Roy said. “Maybe something good will come out of it, but it won’t help the poor kids that trained for four years and now don’t have a chance to qualify.”

Next weekend, the Division I and II girls state meets will take place Saturday at Springfield College. The Division I and II boys events will be Sunday at Harvard University in Cambridge.